About Truthful Grace: An Introduction

Several years ago, it became a pressing need for me to sort out my understandings that had been a part of my identity since birth. I was raised in a Seventh-day Adventist home by an SDA minister. We had family worship every evening, went to church and Sabbath School every week and deeply identified with the doctrines and culture of Adventism. I remember my father introducing himself to neighbors and others with the words, “I am a Seventh-day Adventist.” I thrived in this environment and culture. I was right in my element and happy there.

Life leads us in such interesting and unexpected ways. During college I was introduced to the teaching of Righteousness by Faith in Jesus Christ alone. It came thru an unorthodox and repudiated man by the name of Robert Brinsmead. Interestingly, he still fully believed in the teachings of Ellen White. My husband and I bought the huge set of original Review and Herald articles by Ellen White and read them. This teaching of Righteousness by Faith was fully supported by the Adventist Church and was the subject of focus during the 1888 General Conference Session. Later, the church denounced the foundations of this doctrine and things veered back toward legalism.

During medical school at Loma Linda University in the 1970s another earthquake hit Adventism in the form of Ronald Numbers and others who questioned the integrity of Ellen White herself. There were others who joined in the fray and led to quite a stir within our community. All of these events caused me to question my roots, but not abandon them. I was like most Adventists in the belief there was nowhere else to go since no other churches believed in and kept the Sabbath. It was Adventism or nothing. So, my leaning was toward cleaning up the swamp, not leaving it.

The next phase began in 1988, during a severe personal crisis, when God sent Christians into my life who knew Him and heard from Him in ways I had never seen within my reference group. I realized that there was much more to be understood and experienced. At this point, the Holy Spirit took over and beckoned me to Himself.

If you were deeply involved in Adventism during that era, or if you weren’t born yet, you may not even be aware of The Renewal. It was a powerful work of God that focused on the Holy Spirit during the late 1980’s and the 1990’s. Inexplicably, I was drawn into its vortex and my life was never the same again. It was heady and intense, with manifestations of the very presence of God. To be candid, there was a mixture of truth and excess. But there was enough of the real thing which made me realize that all that happened in the book of Acts and Paul’s writings is available to us today.

It was during the 1990’s that I was on a hillside in Redlands, CA with my Bible when I stumbled across the passage in 2 Cor 5:6 which reads: “Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. We live by faith, not by sight. We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it.”

It knocked me sideways. What? Away from the body and with the Lord? That went against everything I had ever been taught about death and resurrection – and the time in between. What did it mean? I began voraciously reading the scriptures and other Christian writings. The Renewal had put me in touch with other Christians who were godly and whose journeys I trusted. I asked many of them to explain their take on this. No one could really answer because they had never had to account for the teaching of soul sleep.

The more I studied, the more I realized that what I had been taught was not scriptural, despite all of the “Proof Texts.” It was also during this time that Dale Ratzlaff was writing and engaging the foundations of Adventism. He added context to my search. Soon, I had put together a rather comprehensive study of the Sabbath and Soul Sleep.

I had no idea what I was going to do with it, but it wasn’t long before an Adventist pastor who prided himself on being open-minded and “liberal” asked me to teach a series of talks on my findings in his Adventist church. While he didn’t support much of the legalistic, behavioral leanings of Adventism, he still clung to the teachings of the Sabbath and Soul Sleep. He commented that he didn’t think the talks would be as “hard-hitting” as he perceived them to be and didn’t believe that the basis of the doctrines could be refuted.

Over the next year I presented my findings on a weekly basis to this Adventist congregation. Approximately sixty people attended. One of the attendees was a professor at La Sierra University and by the end said, “I don’t see how any thinking person could dispute what you have taught.” He and his wife left Adventism along with scores of others.

These studies were published in a blog and website called Gently Broken. Unfortunately, I became caught up in other responsibilities and lost the domain. Now, several years later, it has seemed appropriate to make them available again along with the stories of many who felt the need to jettison some of the beliefs that kept them from true freedom in Christ. Truthful Grace is the result of all that has gone before.

Much has happened since I first wrote these studies. My focus has changed away from the foundations of Seventh-day Adventism and toward the realization of the presence of the Holy Spirit in us. Experiencing His presence and interacting with His constant communication has become the quest of this season in my life. I pray that it will be yours.

So, why this website now? Until we extricate ourselves from erroneous concepts of God, we are not fully free to explore and receive all that He has for us. When we are still entangled with vestiges of graveclothes, we are not able to fly free into His grace. The ultimate result and goal is to let go of everything that holds us back and to run into the open arms of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. One of the people who attended the presentation of these studies made a comment that made it all worthwhile to me, “These studies are really about the Sabbath or Soul Sleep. They are about Jesus.” Yes, Carol, you are right. I welcome you to the journey.